Everett Baker’s Saskatchewan: Portraits of an Era

University of Saskatchewan historian Bill Waiser has selected and compiled Everett Baker’s photographs into the first-ever book-form showcase of this exceptional photographer’s work. Everett Baker’s photographic documentation of the province in the mid-twentieth century is a national treasure, Bill Waiser declares in the Introduction to this book. Unlike the black and white photos that typically document the era, they are as colorful as a flax field in bloom and together they provide rich insight into Everett Baker’s unique view of the social history of Saskatchewan.

Everett Baker’s Saskatchewan is a book filled with photos of the province as Baker saw it starting in 1937, when he travelled from town to town as a field man for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. With his German-made 35mm Leica camera, Baker took Kodachrome color slide pictures of the people, towns, and farms he visited, immortalizing a unique chapter in Saskatchewan’s history. It was the golden age of the co-operative movement in the province, as well as a time of change with the rise of Tommy Douglas’s Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government. The old world was slipping into the shadow of the new, and Baker was there to capture it before it disappeared altogether.

Anyone interested in Saskatchewan history, writes StarPhoenix columnist Randy Burton, or even in taking a fresh look at where we came from, will find this book a fascinating look back.